What UI do you prefer?
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,725
Since it looks like a rather controversial theme, let's try to focus only on the UI, not other traits/enhancements/fixes/bugs of different BG versions.
One simple question - Which of the UI-s do you personally find to be better for you?
Maybe in the answers you could reflect on the reasons for this or that choice.
One simple question - Which of the UI-s do you personally find to be better for you?
Maybe in the answers you could reflect on the reasons for this or that choice.
- What UI do you prefer?108 votes
- The EE UI from the version 1.352.78%
- The EE UI from the beta version26.85%
- The vanilla BG1 UI2.78%
- The vanilla BG2 UI12.96%
- I use UI from a mod4.63%
0
Comments
There are a few changes from the beta that I do like, such as the pop-out journal and the area map (if it would stop obscuring map notes and having the "highlight traversable terrain" option on by default; who wants to see that cyan color overlaid on the entire area when they first open the map??? How disorienting!).
But then there are the changes to the spellbook, inventory, and record screens. The spellbook icons look more like smears than distinct icons, and there's no arrows to navigate between spell levels now.
In the inventory, the full information breakdown of a particular statistic is hidden behind a tooltip; inventory highlighting is annoying; and dragging inventory items seems to cause the game to run at a slower FPS while the item is picked up, which can make inventory management slower.
In the record screen, everything is now categorized into tabs, and for people like me that prefer reading an information dump because we're crusty veterans that hate change, figuring out what information's gone to which tab is too time-consuming.
Most of the bugs I've encountered are UI-related anyway.
In the same time, it has been very much in style with the vanilla BG2 UI, which I liked. Of course, I respect the UI from BG1 and that UI gives me good nostalgia.
With every next patch, the UI in the EEs became even better (the highlighting of known spells, the quick loot bar etc). It all led to the patch 1.3 for BGEE and BG2EE.
While the UI from the beta version looks like a big step forward in terms of a moddability, it doesn't look BG-ish to me. It's still very much informative, but it feels differently.
I would gladly enjoy playing SoD with a brand-new UI, because I look at SoD as if it is a new game in the BG series.
But to me, the UI in BGEE and BG2EE could stay as it was, without a major overhaul.
That being said, I'm rather surprised to see that there isn't an SoD UI option in this poll:
If I had to choose from the official GUI's, I'd vote for the SoD one. Closely followed by BGII:EE's new 2.0 GUI. Based on the screenshots, that is.
the 1.3 UI had severe flaws in inventory and character screen (dumping too much text in too small boxes is no good UI), the only thing why we don't usually notice that is because we are so used to it.
This was improved UI-design wise in 2.0beta. But 2.0beta yet lacks "fantasy styling" (i intentionally use the terms "design" and "styling" as they are different things). I hope it is coming back until 2.0final.
So i voted for the beta UI, wishing there would have been an option "beta UI, but with improved style" too. I think the results would be more revealing then.
What do you guys think of the new inventory screen? Do you ever need to see how your character's damage or AC are calculated, or do you know how to calculate those things already? Is the comparison useful, and do you like seeing the math behind the derived stats (Damage, AC, etc) in tooltips?
Which is why it was such a shock and slap in the face the first time I started playing and had my eyes bleed on me when viewing that new inferior looking crappy character sheet for the first time =(
So unintuitive and harder to find things that were simple and familiar previously.
It is nice to see how weapons and armour compare... but not needed as we can do the math in our heads.
Ultimately, like @bengoshi explains... I like the nostalgia of BG and the v1.3 UI kept in line with this.
The square boxes are really dull and immersion breaking though. They need more decoration
2.0 however isn't anywhere near finished and not aesthetically pleasing. The new journal and character sheet UIs are garbage. The new Inventory UI is ok, but it now has a huge chunk of wasted space, which looks very awkward.
I love you guys and am sorry for the harsh words, but that has to be said.
I think the 1.3 UI can be bettered, and the 2.0 effort we have seen shows some clear out-the-box thinking on how to clean things up, so I am hoping that 2.0 final will be my eventual answer
[edit] the easy way to bribe me would be to make Cleric/thieves functional in Black Pits 2
Aesthetically, the beta UI falls flat from both style perspective and in terms of cohesion; it doesn't fit with the rest of the game. While some of the usability is improved, I think it sacrifices far too much in order to achieve it.
Additionally, the new UI no longer looks nor feels like a character sheet to me. Part of the appeal of the IE games for myself, and I imaigne many others, is that they evoke many of the same feelings and habits as true P&P RPGs. While the old UIs have some clutter, they successfully convey what it feels like to pour over your sheet in excitement, much like a physical character sheet from a tabletop game.
While it is true many of us are accustomed to the old UI and there is an element of nostalgia, I think that is still a valid stance to have; this game is a classic. The old UI may be sub-optimally designed from a UX perspective, but it *feels* good to me. This new UI has the opposite effect, it pulls me out of the immersion.
I'm an evolutionary anthropologist who does UX research and design for a major game company in California, for what it's worth. While it's a different type of game, some of the other designers and I play a D&D campaign together and enjoy the Enhanced Editions. When the beta came up in conversation our consensus of the new UI was that is was, in short, "a total bummer". This may not be the most useful piece of feedback, but it arose in a moment of honesty, and while concise I think it accurately represents how we feel.
That said, the work put into the engine is much appreciated, as is the ongoing beta process!
EDIT: Syntax, grammar
One of my favorite features is how if you select a section in the character sheet menu, and switch a character, it will maintain you selection. This enables easy comparisons if you want to look at battle stats/proficiencies.
Anyway what I have come to learn is that users always have bad first impressions of new user interface design. Its something that needs time to get accustomed to. I remember the huge negative outburst in the League of Legends community whenever they made any significant changes to the UI. Yet, after a few months of refinement and getting used to the changes, all the complaints went away.
I feel terrible for saying this but 2.0 doesn't really excite me anymore with all these additions that conflict with my muscle memory. I understand it's an attempt to bring more ease-of-use for eventual new crowds and I agree us long-timers are no longer the target audience, but it just ends up doing the opposite when you've been used to bioware's work for a decade. Pre-2.0 reflected very well the meaning of "enhancement", 2.0 appears more like "remastered". It doesn't feel right when I gotta actively spend effort to find where to click when I simply want to load a game or get back to the main menu.
This probably makes me a bad person. I am sorry. Will still buy SoD though.
"Oh recently I've enjoyed Wasteland 2, Pillars, Divinity Original Sin, Dead State, obviously still a fan of the Baldur's Gate games and am looking forward to DragonSpear and Torment: Tides of Numenera this year"
"Never heard of them, but I just got Fallout 4 on my Ps4, best RPG ever!!"
>Resists urge to slap that youth across the head and launch into a tirade about how it isn't even an RPG..
If the UI in the EEs stayed as it was in the 1.3 version, all this time and work could be spent on something else, other than the UI.
And for all I say that design-by-committee is bad, @00zim00 is doing an awesome job iterating feedback on a more minimal set of changes that retain the flavor, and improve the utility.
I think my biggest concern with the UI is not that BeamDog can't get this right in time, but that they have given themselves a hard deadline that will make it extremely difficult to balance the kind of feedback we are seeing with the scale of the changes - but those death-march bug-sprints at the end of a project have a way of working miracles (for the survivors!)
The only great thing a design by committee achieves is a great aneurysm on the poor designer who's in charge of executing it.